


The Woods

by ladyoneill



Category: Elfquest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-20
Updated: 2008-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:01:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1625645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyoneill/pseuds/ladyoneill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The woods have always been there for him, a part of him and in his blood. But will they be there forever?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Woods

**Author's Note:**

> My first attempt at Elfquest since I used to write original characters into everything about twenty-five years ago!
> 
> Written for Kalliopeia

 

 

The woods are always there.

Every corner holds life. Birds sing, squirrels chitter. The flowers bloom in both sun and shade. The sound of insects fills the air.

Over the years the types of creatures may change, the flowers and plants may be different, but there is enough that is similar to be familiar.

Sitting in the wide fork of a towering oak, Cutter listens to the sounds of his forest. The sun is setting on the horizon and his pack is stirring beneath him. Night is coming and with it new sounds, new smells. The dampening of leaves, the chirp of night insects, the howls of the waking wolves.

He has seen many woods over his long life, sat in hundreds of trees beneath the rising two moons.

They all bring a kind of comfort. They are a part of him. The years in the desert never drove away the desire for cool branches and crisp leaves. He was born and reared in a woods far from this one, but the feeling in his heart is the same.

Home.

When he was a child and even a young chief, all he knew was the woods of the Holt. It was the only home he'd ever known and, in his innocence, in all his pack's innocence, it was all they believed existed.

In the many years since Cutter has learned just how large the world is, how many forests it holds. There are jungles of wild, twisted plants that bear sweet fruit in the blazing heat. There are forests of firs that stand nearly all year in snow and shelter creatures of thick fur. He feels they are all a part of him, every tree is a tie to memory.

He hasn't lived in the Now for too long to remember. Images of forests long gone mingle with the sight before his eyes.

It doesn't bother him. The trees are his comfort and his shelter. He loves them, as he loves every member of his pack, his family.

As he loves the brother in all but blood who swings up beside him, a cheeky grin on his face.

"If you sit here too long you'll grow roots."

Cutter smiles at Skywise, noting how his friend's eyes drift upwards to the slowly emerging stars. "Roots aren't such a bad thing as long as they continue to grow."

"You're thinking too much."

"Well, can't have that, can we." 

"Remembering?" Skywise has always known him so well.

Cutter shrugs and scratches his back against the trunk of the tree. "We've seen so many trees in our lives. So many forests scattered over this world. Do you think they'll ever disappear?"

"I hope not, but with the way the humans continue to spread, who knows."

"Where will we go if the day comes when the woods are gone?"

"Elves can live anywhere, Cutter."

A shadow crosses Cutter's face. "I can live in other places. We all have. But I only thrive beneath a sheltering tree." He shrugs again, tries to smile. "I guess I was born to it."

"At least you weren't born in a tree like me," Skywise jokes, trying to lighten the mood of his chief.

"You're the only cub I've ever heard of born more than ten feet off the ground." Cutter flips him a grin. "Probably why you're so flighty."

Skywise doesn't take offense, only laughs and smacks his friend in the shoulder. "Come on, enough deep thoughts for one day. Let's hunt."

Later, as night begins to lighten towards day, the sky turning from black to midnight blue to purple, and the stars fading, Cutter slips through the hole in the tree and into the nest he's made with his lifemate. Wearing faded red leathers she's finally comfortable in, Leetah sits on the bed furs, humming to herself, and mending one of his shirts. Inside the tree it is warm and the glow of a lantern turns the interior wood the color of honey. 

Cutter touches it, runs his hand over the smooth surface. Magic tingles beneath his fingers. The tree remembers its shaping. 

Over time Redlance has turned many simple trees into elaborate homes for the pack. Cutter knows this is only the latest. It won't be the last. Eventually it will become too weak to hold them and some day it will die. And the pack will move on to another forest and another grove of trees.

This is the Way now, and all his family have come to accept it. They have all lived for so long, seen so many changes. While some have been lost along the way, others have lived hundreds of years longer than they ever expected. Wolfriders' lives are short. That belief was held by all of them when he was a cub.

It's no longer true.

And some of his kin will live forever.

"Do you think, that if you live long enough, you'll see the beginning of this world?"

Leetah looks up, her brows drawn together in concern. "What has you thinking of such a thing?"

"The forests change, we move from wood to wood. Time passes. Everything changes, even the immortal ones."

Biting the thread and knotting it, Leetah nods. "Rayek believes that the world will eventually turn upon itself and time will start again. Will any of us live to see that? I hope not."

Cutter is startled by her answer and crouches down in front of her as she sets aside her mending. "Why?"

She smiles a bit sadly and caresses the fur on his cheek. "Because I won't see it with you, my love, for one." At his nod of acknowledgment of his mortality, she continues, "and I agree that everything changes and evolves. None of us are stuck in our ways anymore, not even those of your kin who have held so fast to the Way. I'd hate to see everything regress."

"Regress?"

"Go back to a simpler time. While we elves live much as we always have, there have been changes. You know this is true. The Way has changed for all of us and it's a good thing, Cutter. If we don't change, we stagnate. When you first found the Sun Folk, this was true. You brought new life, new blood, literally, to my people, and we changed. And the rest of the world has changed so much. Who knows what the future will bring? Also, the elves came ten thousand years ago to a savage world, but how long had the world existed? Was it more primitive than that?" She shudders delicately. "I don't think I want to know."

"Good points. When I was a cub, before we were forced out of the Holt, I was one of the few who thought past tomorrow, but I never would have imagined ten thousand years passing and still more to come. We died so easily, it didn't make sense to plan long term."

"We still die too easily, but we don't have to. Even you, my love, don't have to for a long, long time." Reaching for him, she pulls him into her arms and he cradles her against his chest. "My young cub never thought so deeply."

"Do you miss him?"

"No, because even as the trees grow and the forests change, so do you." Cupping his cheeks, she presses a soft kiss to his lips. "It's what keeps life so very interesting."

End 

 


End file.
